Red Notice

111

Gavin leaped into a Range Rover and screamed down towards the tunnel entrance. The moment COBRA green-lit a follow-up, he wanted to be the one leading the team.

The military option was complete; the police had begun mopping up. Hands on heads, the Yankees lay face down in the rain as blue flashing lights swamped the area. They were taken into the back of a van one at a time. It wouldn’t be long before the whole world knew this hadn’t been an electrical fault.

The team was reassembling inside the service tunnel as Gavin screeched to a halt. He ran straight over to Jockey. ‘Mate, any luck with the mobile?’

Jockey tossed it to him. ‘They just retrieved it from the cab. Tom, Delphine… We’ve got to get fuckin’ moving.’

‘Mate, I know. Make sure the boys are ready. We’re waiting on the “go” from COBRA.’

Gavin hit the keypad and scrolled down the call log. He saw it at once. Ashton had been on the line when he was outside the hangar. He turned to Jockey. ‘Where’s the Boss?’

‘Gone back to the heli.’

Gavin broke into a run. He sprinted the thirty metres past the line of soaked hostages and straight onto the Chinook’s ramp. Rain drummed noisily on the aircraft’s aluminium skin.

Ashton was just behind the pilot’s bulkhead, next to the stack of gold. He had his back to Gavin and was holding a mobile to his ear. Tom’s phone vibrated in Gavin’s hand. He closed in on Ashton, passing the full bladder of extra fuel rigged up to supplement the main tank. Strapped to the deck, it looked like the floor of a bouncy castle.

Ashton spun round at the noise of footsteps.

‘What the fuck were you doing?’ Gavin yelled. ‘You told me you didn’t call him. But you did, didn’t you? And Antonov had this fucking thing, not Tom. What the fuck were you talking about? You were on this fucking thing for more than two minutes.’

Gavin closed on Ashton, thrusting the mobile’s screen at him. ‘And what the fuck is all that about?’ He pointed at the ready-bag the other side of the gold.

Gavin felt angrier with each stride he took. ‘It was you that warned him yesterday. It was, wasn’t it?’

Ashton stood his ground. He let the mobile drop an inch or two in his palm so half of the phone was sticking out, like the blade of a dagger. He tightened his grip.

The NCO ranted at him: ‘Tom and Delphine are still in there, with that fucking nutter… If I find out it was because of you, I’m going to fucking destroy you. What the fuck do you—’

Ashton’s fist tightened around the phone. Before Gavin could gather himself, he swung it round and down, making brutal contact with Gavin’s right temple. Gavin staggered under the blow. Ashton moved closer, pounding the mobile into his head with all the force he could muster, once, twice, three times.

Gavin sank onto the ridged floor of the Chinook. Ashton grabbed him under the armpits and shuffled backwards, dragging him behind the stack of crates. He got down onto his knees and stabbed the hard plastic case repeatedly into the side of Gavin’s head.

Whimpers and groans filled the air. It took Gavin a moment to realize they were his own. He felt the power ebb from his hands as he tried to stop the onslaught. The skin split under the pressure and blood streamed from the wound.

Another thirty seconds and Gavin struggled one last time, with all the frenzied strength a man draws on when he knows he is dying. His hands stopped grasping. The movement in his legs subsided to no more than a spasmodic twitching. Seconds later he lay still.